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Cassette 2: Ulster Museum (1973)/Transcript
This is the official transcript for the episode which can also be accessed for free at'' patreon.com/withinthewires. This transcript contained major discrepancies from the episode which have been indicated in the transcript body. Minor errors have also been corrected, these are listed at the bottom of the page.'' MARY: Welcome to the Ulster Museum in Belfast. I am the Director of Collections, Mary Breathnach. As we enter the new decade of the 1970s, we face many changes to the art world. Many national borders have fallen away, our world joining together in economic and political unity, but as history changes before our eyes, so does it stay the same. The Ulster Museum, part of the Collected Museums of Western Europa, is proud to present "Red/Love: The Passion of Claudia Atieno," sponsored by the Harriman Family Trust. These are Atieno's most popular works, many from the mid 1960s, when her career was at its height: "Sunshine Afternoon," "Still Life with Tomato Plant and Sword," and even a recently-discovered repainting of her popular "Still Life with Cat.” It’s been some months since anyone has seen Atieno. Some have even claimed her absence is sinister - that she is missing, that she may even be dead, a long and brilliant career possibly cut short at its peak. While we feel it’s best to refrain from sensationalist speculation, we are also loath to promise more art when we cannot be sure there is more to come. (Wiki note: the following excerpts indicated with square brackets were cut from the finished episode, but not the official transcript.) only covering a brief few years of her life, the “Red/Love” exhibit reveals Atieno’s diverse passions: political subversion, polyamory, and even intrigue in common objects. Thank you for choosing to take our audio cassette tour. Your audioguide today will be Roimata Mangakahia, herself an esteemed artist and friend to Atieno. most recent exhibit "Eyes in Palms" was featured at the Dallas Museum of Art. The New Manhattan Times called Mangakahia "mysterious, yet straightforward... Her work offers complicated knots to untangle for those who wish to find order, but gorgeously structured colors and textures for those who want to appreciate fine art on its surface." Al-Ahram called Mangakahia "a master of landscapes." The audio tour begins at the south entrance of Art Gallery 3. The tour follows a counterclockwise pattern around the exhibit. Each piece with an accompanying audio lecture will be noted with a blue star on the numbered title card & there will be a tone on the recording to indicate where you may pause the cassette, before moving onto the next work. Please enjoy your visit to Ulster Museum and the exhibit "Red/Love." become a member, please request a brochure when returning your cassette player and headphones, near the front entrance. Please press pause after the tone and start at Painting 101. #TONE# ROIMATA: Painting 101: "Still Life with Tomato Plant and Sword" by Claudia Atieno, oil on canvas, 1962. It is one of her most discussed and debated works, and is one of the collection of paintings that shifted her career from successful artist to celebrity. As much a celebrity as a painter can be, while still alive of course. The painting sold at Sotheby's in 1969 for nearly £1 million and is on loan to this exhibit. Many critics admire the gentle and crafty hand at work here. Notice the thin strokes of orange and pink creating the sunny glare on the tomato. Atieno nearly exposes the texture of the canvas with such thin passes of the brush. It looks almost like watercolors, rather than oil, and it is shallower than the rest of her painting. Lean closely to the left side to see this remarkable detail. What is exposed? What is vulnerable? You'll notice that the titular sword is not visible here, but just past the trellis and the tomato plant, you can see a nearly empty garden. The grass is mangy and uneven, but what appears as a large blotch of unusable dirt, is actually a mound. The sword of this work’s title has been buried in the garden. This painting premiered at the Berkshire Museum, where Atieno was living at the time as a resident artist in the former United States. Atieno’s home now is in Cornwall. It is a large house, somewhere along the road to disrepair, sitting alone on an island some distance from the mainland. My first few visits to Cornwall, Claudia and I had tea at a cafe called Joyeuse, named for Charlemagne's sword. We were served sandwiches and scones, and in back there was a small garden, with sparse grass & a small, insipid vegetable plot. The tomato plant was the only thing that grew well there, but often the squirrels stole them just as they reached maturity. The owner of Joyeuse, a petite-figured man named Jennifer who wore square-rimmed glasses & wool leggings, hung his handmade replica of the eponymous sword just above the doorway to the garden area in back. He had used a wood base & aluminium veneer. It was pulled slightly from the sheath, which was emblazoned with large jewels that hardly seemed real at all but were stunning and smart in their own right. In this painting, look closely at the upturned soil in the garden, imagine Charlemagne's sword. Imagine it now buried in the garden in this painting. Examine the uninspired tomato vines, their drooping and bare stalks fully revealed, but impossibly beautiful in Atieno’s rendition. How will you be remembered? Atieno does not expect viewers to know about the now-defunct Joyeuse cafe in Cornwall in Western Europa, but she certainly expects viewers to understand that if the title says there is a sword in the painting, then there is a sword in the painting, and it is your job to find it. The garden at Joyeuse & even the sword to which it refers were clear influences on Atieno's seminal masterpiece, and the longer I have looked at the painting the more I wonder if the sword is buried in the ground - an on-the-line tribute to our post-Reckoning international order of peace - or perhaps, knowing Atieno's wry sense of humor and love of subtle symbolic critiques, perhaps the sword has been dug up. Look closely at the mound of dirt. The arc of the mound could suggest a burial of weaponry, but in the oblong black patch toward the top, I see the suggestion of a hole, rather than a heap. The sword is missing, and Atieno does not know where it is. Perhaps the viewer themself holds it. Do you? Do you hold the sword? #TONE# Painting 102: "Marketplace, Summer afternoon 1965" A painting of a crowded food market. Notice the almost boneless limbs on the merchants. The apple cart vendor in the lower right has an arced elbow that never quite reaches a point. Her knees are nearly S-shaped. You can see the ocean over the tents in the background. Many books refer to this scene as St Ives, this is likely Plymouth. I think recognize that view, from my brief time living near there, but perhaps I am wrong. This is why we make art. To help us remember more beautifully, not more clearly. #TONE# Painting 103: "Stapler" (1968) It is a painting of a black Swingline stapler on a black background. The audacity of this painting irritated many older artists, as it looks like a poorly-lit photo in an office supply catalogue. Look closely at the black of the stapler and the black of the background. Is all darkness the same? How absent is light in the absence of light? Atieno, on the surface is displaying her technical skills - it is photographic quality in every way. It looks like almost like an advertisement here on the Ulster Museum wall. Perhaps Atieno is making a commentary on the commentary of the Pop Art movement, but most likely she is simply showing off her technique. She was quite prolific in her art, and they are all good works, as you can see here in Belfast, but in her mind, mastery of form was mastery of art. But in my mind, an artist can always do more. In Cornwall, there were cliffs overlooking the sea. At high tide, I would take off my clothes and dive the 10 meters drop. I encouraged Claudia to dive with me, but she couldn't do it. These beautiful cliffs along an endless cool sea, a scene she could paint, and did, but not one she could truly explore for fear of what? Not heights. She did not flinch at bending over the ledge. Not water, either. She swam regularly, when she could walk down to the shore. I always wanted her to jump, to plunge. To risk pain or embarrassment to feel bodily the glory of this rare nature. To paint something truly epic - busy, tall, complex, masterful - to make more astonishing what was already astonishing. To freefall into a the vastness that contains both wildness and tranquility. But when eyes were on Claudia, she demurred. She believed in frightful conspiracies and intimidated power brokers of the new society, but when the world looked to her for commentary, she sometimes just wanted to paint staplers. There has been so much talk about Atieno recently, so much speculation. People say she’s “disappeared.” This seems ridiculous to me. Artists are reclusive sometimes, we need to be. The world is our inspiration, sure, but also our most dangerous distraction. It is more likely her so-called disappearance is not a disappearance at all but an absence, a hiatus, a time spent away from the pressures of celebrity to rethink her artistry. Look closely at the Swingline logo in the painting. What does it mean to be convinced to buy something? #TONE# Painting 104: "Fingers. Together." (1967) Atieno here has painted a self-portrait of sorts with her sometime partner Pavel Zubov, a lesser-known sculptor she had met in 1965 in St Petersburg. The painting shows two sets of fingers intertwined. The simple contrast in skin tones, and the smooth lines of each knuckle create a crosshatch pattern that strikes the eye even from 50 metres away. Look at the fingers. Can you tell which fingers are the woman’s and which are the man’s? In your mind, what signifies a male finger versus a female finger? Are race and skin color connected or even relevant? Why is it important to distinguish? In Pavel's skin, you can see subtle indications of veins, the pulse one can feel in physical contact with another. Notice the soft brushwork, creating an almost gauzy effect. The natural inclination is to assume gentle love, young love even, given the plump smoothness of each finger. Although, given that this was 1967, Atieno might be giving herself too much credit to paint herself with such supple skin. I would also caution you not to accept too much naive love in this painting. This work is a popular poster to be hung in university dormitories, but its brash idealism is hiding something harsher. Look closely at Atieno's nails: short, chewed down - an indication of stress. Zubov's are keenly manicured, almost sharpened. His little finger is out of view. Some writers have suggested that she deliberately did not paint it as a symbol of the child they lost only two months before birth. At best, that is a weak symbolic gesture for the immense tragedy of a miscarried child. At worst, it is a lie conceived by hack writers trying to sell papers, as Atieno never carried Zubov's child. The little finger is not missing, it is hidden from view at this angle, a symbol, yes, but of Zubov's opacity in love. He had many partners. This should have been fine - their relationship was polyamorous (as were all of Atieno's relationships), but even with permission, Zubov felt the need to conceal. He convinced each lover that he was monogamous, hiding each from each. I lived with Claudia for a time. It is large, that house, and often full of people - Claudia, obviously, and Zubov, most of the time. They were passionate, sometimes both naked in front of me. Sometimes leaving their bedroom door open. I admired their free spirit, their ability to confront each other with ideas and personal jabs and even great gulping kisses. It was clear that the others who lived in that house from time to time were used to the passionate couple. In that house, the borders between friendship and otherwise were blurred. I can attest personally to this. Lack of transparency, to Atieno, was equal to deception. If you did not say how you felt to her - whether it was about her art, herself, someone else, or even what kind of tea you would like that afternoon - she believed you to be hiding something. She likewise, would be completely honest with you. And as Zubov never brought any other sexual partners to the house, as Atieno did, she suspected he was hiding something. And she was right. Look again at the intertwining fingers in the painting? Is Atieno being completely honest with you? Are you being honest with anyone? #TONE# Painting 105: "Sunshine Afternoon" (1968) - One of Atieno's lesser-known works. Zubov found it in his basement 2 years ago. It is a painting of sunlight slicing through gray clouds over what is presumably the Celtic Sea. The water in this picture is choppy. Look at the choppy water. #TONE# Painting 106: "Self-Portrait with cat" (1972, unfinished) - This painting was recently discovered by Zubov in his home. Atieno already had a painting called “Self-portrait with Cat,” despite claiming to never have had a cat. I asked her about this painting once or twice, and she was completely unwilling to discuss it. I got the sense she simply did not like this work, but yet here is another version of the same picture. In what you can see of her face, she is making the same facial expression as in the original: a wry smile, her eyes, fixated to something distant. But her face is older, as is the cat’s - its eyes and neck sagging. The light coming in the window is orange, a sunset. Look closely at her eyes. Are those the eyes of a woman holding a cat she does not own? Whose cat is it? Look at where the brush strokes end in this unfinished work. Why would she paint this painting again? Zubov eventually admitted to having four other lovers, but he refused to tell any of them about the others. He only told Atieno, because, as he said, he loved her more. He added, I would leave them for you, Claudia. I would leave them for you. But she threw a salad fork at him, and said she couldn't love him back if he did not love the rest of the world as equals. While I believe this sentiment is suffocatingly idealistic, I understood that Atieno saw Zubov’s deception as a lack of respect for himself and the other men and women he was seeing. He prized comfort over truth, and Atieno could not abide that. Over the few years I knew Claudia, we grew close - which is to say we were with each other often, and intensely. Claudia fought and argued with me. She sometimes called me names, but as long as I said how I felt, we could work through our disagreements and convince each other of almost anything. We talked of her ending her relationship with Pevel. Sometimes she threw things. Sometimes I couldn’t speak, for fear of crying in front of her. Eventually it was thought that Pavel should not come back. Our conversations were so full of passion, honesty, intimacy, I still wonder who thought this thought first. Perhaps it was Claudia’s idea all along. She ordered Pavel to leave, and he returned. She ordered him to leave again, and he returned, although later than before. After the third command to leave her alone, he seemed to not return at all. But every so often Claudia would receive parcels with no return address. These boxes would contain a single piece of an animal: a tooth from a fox or large rodent, an ear cut off of a rabbit, and one time, a field mouse cut in half at the torso and all of its blood drained. I urged Claudia to call authorities, but she said Pavel always sent her studies of new sculptures he was working on. (Wiki note: the following excerpt indicated with square brackets was cut from the finished episode, but not the official transcript.) Atieno began this redux painting "Self-Portrait with Cat," featuring Atieno in her wicker chair on her enclosed patio, the cliffs behind her. On her lap, the calico cat Matryoshka. Matryoshka was a haggard stray who turned up on the island one day. None of us could understand how she could have got there - she could hardly have swum all the way from the shore, and Atieno’s motorboat was too small to have hidden her. We never solved that particular mystery. She was named Matryoshka, because when Zubov first found her, the cat was pregnant. Behind Atieno Matryoshka in the self-portrait, along the cliffs there is a small figure, near the ledge. As she did not finish this painting, it is difficult to say her intention with this rough blotch. Most assume it is a tree, but I have been in that home many days, and there is no tree there. It is a human, or at least, a man. I do not know who the man is, or what he wants or intends. This painting was unfinished because Atieno disappeared. Rather, she left her Cornwall home without taking it with her, and left no forwarding address. I do not think she has disappeared. I do not think she has done anything so dramatic. Claudia was last seen at her home in Cornwall in October 1972. Pavel arrived while Claudia was at the market. I answered the door. Pavel and I nodded at each other, but otherwise did not communicate. I left that afternoon to give a lecture at the rebuilt Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and have not seen Claudia since. I don't want to imply Pavel in her disappearance, nor give into suspicions that she is dead. I think. Or hope. Or some word like that, some word like that--Repetition of "some word like that" was not included, dashes were not included she is back home near Dodoma or in a commune in Halifax or perhaps in another cottage by another sea wanting us to wait for her next work, something the prolific artist rarely required of us. Wanting to challenge and provoke and amaze us. I think that. I hope that. I something something that. Errors Category:Transcripts